Roadway courtesy I'd like to call your attention to the various places where sidewalks are closed for construction. These closures make it necessary for the pedestrians and cyclists who use the affected sidewalks to take to the street. Nevertheless, I've been honked at, yelled at, and sworn at by drivers who helpfully instruct me to "Get on the sidewalk," - in spite of those big orange signs bearing the words "Sidewalk Closed. " First, when a sidewalk is closed, it really and truly is closed - those signs don't have some clever alternative meaning.

Former President Carter is getting a cool reception in Israel, where he arrived Sunday at the start of a nine-day Mideast tour that he said would likely include a meeting with Hamas leaders in Syria. Carter is a Nobel Peace Prize winner who brokered the first Arab-Israeli peace accord. He's being shunned by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Carter met Sunday with President Shimon Peres, whose position is ceremonial.

Former President Carter is getting a cool reception in Israel, where he arrived Sunday at the start of a nine-day Mideast tour that he said would likely include a meeting with Hamas leaders in Syria. Carter is a Nobel Peace Prize winner who brokered the first Arab-Israeli peace accord. He's being shunned by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Carter met Sunday with President Shimon Peres, whose position is ceremonial.

Gauging the prospects for peace out of the currently impending purported breakthrough in the Mideast is not unlike predicting where and how hard Hurricane Emily will strike the East Coast. Does the proposed agreement have enough power to make a lasting impression, or is it just so much bluster? Will one of the key players suddenly spin off in another direction? Have the Israelis made political history by stabilizing Tropical Storm Yasser, long an unpredictable element of any atmosphere?

Yasser Arafat, peacemaker. The words are an unlikely combination. Few men have come so far in so short a time to change their image. Can a leopard change his spots? For a quarter-century Arafat headed the Palestine Liberation Organization, which for most of the western world was a terrorist organization bent on using violence against Israel. For much of the Mideast, he was a hero, champion of the Palestinians, fighting for rectification of what were seen as historic injustices.

Saturday's question: Is it safe for President Clinton to go to the Mideast? YES: 36 Of course it is safe. He's sending our troops over there, isn't he? ... It's just as safe for him as for any of our other dignitaries in Washington. ... Bill Clinton will be as safe as anyone else in the Mideast. ... He'll be much safer going to the Mideast than staying in the crime capital, Washington, D.C. ... It may be safer in the Middle East than it is in this country with all of the hundreds of millions of guns on the street.

For years a maxim in discussions of American foreign policy when force was being eyed as an option has been: Don't let this become another Vietnam. The consensus at the moment, with the United States on the brink of war in the Mideast, is that the situation at hand is not another Vietnam. But the differences in the two fronts, a quarter-century apart, are not so great that they overwhelm the similarities. Let us examine the differences first. The immediate Mideast goal is clear: Oust Iraq from Kuwait and end the aggressive takeover of last August.

A group says that Hampton Roads households average $198 a year for gas that flows to the Mideast. The average household in Hampton Roads spends $198 a year for gasoline payments that flow to coffers of oil producers in the Middle East, an environmental watchdog group says in a report to be issued today. Hampton Roads came in 35th of 50 metropolitan areas. The list ranks metropolitan statistical areas according to how many annual gasoline dollars end up in the Mideast. That translates to about $140 million a year going from Hampton Roads to the Mideast.

With a nudge from U.S. colleagues, Israeli and Palestinian archaeologists have drawn up a blueprint for sharing their intersecting cultural heritage - if and when peace comes to the Holy Land - where scholarly objectivity is often drowned out by nationalist passions. The Israeli-Palestinian Archaeology Working Group Agreement is heralded by its sponsors as a rare accord between the two peoples. It aims to head off the kind of conflicts that have seen U.S. museums pressured to strip their collections of ancient artifacts found under another people's soil.

Virginia Sen. Jim Webb called on military commanders Sunday to consider a regional diplomatic offensive to end the Iraq war, saying a narrow focus on troops in Iraq has largely failed to secure the country or pave the way for a U.S. exit. As the top U.S. commander in Iraq prepares to brief Congress on the war this week, the Democratic senator and former Navy secretary urged military leadership and the Bush administration to seek the cooperation of other Middle East nations like Iran.

SAUDIS WELCOME PRESIDENT BUSH President Bush delivered a sophisticated weapons sale for Saudi Arabia on Monday, trying to bolster defenses against threats from U.S. adversary Iran and muster support in this oil-rich kingdom for a long-stalled Mideast peace agreement. Bush received a warm embrace from King Abdullah, whose family wields almost absolute rule. More on A8 DISORIENTATION KILLED PILOT Navy Blue Angels pilot Lt. Cmdr. Kevin Davis, who died in a crash near Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, S.C., last year, apparently had become disoriented after failing to properly tense his abdominal muscles to counter the gravitational forces of a high-speed turn, a military report stated Monday.

President Bush arrived in Kuwait on Friday to begin the second leg of his Mideast tour, a bid to rally U.S.-aligned Arab leaders against Iran at a time of mounting anxieties about increasing U.S.-Iranian tensions and deep uncertainties about the overall direction of U.S. policy in the region. Though Bush has redeemed himself somewhat in the eyes of Arab leaders with the relative success of his "surge" strategy in Iraq and by making a belated effort to rejuvenate the Arab-Israeli peace process, the president can expect a cool welcome from a part of the world that has widely viewed his policies as disastrous for Arab interests.

More than 300 soldiers from Fort Eustis will leave today for the Middle East, where they will run transportation convoys, escort convoys, distribute supplies and perform other support tasks for U.S. forces in Iraq. It is the unit's first deployment as the 7th Sustainment Brigade, but it is the third Middle East deployment in four years for the group previously known as the 7th Transportation Group. The 7th Transportation Group deployed for six months in 2003 and for a full year in 2004.

President Bush's declared intention to refocus on the Middle East by sponsoring a peace conference this fall won cautious endorsement Tuesday from Israeli, Palestinian and other Arab leaders who will be invited. But many voiced skepticism about what it could achieve. Five years after calling for creation of a Palestinian state next to Israel, Bush on Monday announced his renewed commitment to that goal during the final 18 months of his presidency. But officials and analysts immersed in the six-decade-old conflict said the initiative faces many obstacles: an untenable split among the Palestinians, weak leadership in the Israeli and Palestinian camps, widely differing expectations for the conference and a sense that Bush is acting too late.

It is with a sense of deja vu that one watches the current Mideast standoff unfold. The United Nations has cordoned off southern Iraq, where Saddam Hussein has been repressing Shiite Muslims, and has threatened to shoot down any Iraqi aircraft that venture south of the 32nd parallel. In response, Hurricane Saddam is blustering, threatening to expel U.N. guards and relief workers and block further inspections by U.N. teams in the capital. Once again a bellicose Saddam has backed himself into a corner where he is risking his pride, if not his life, on a confrontation in which he surely will back down.

On Saturday terrorists hacked to death three Israeli soldiers. On Sunday Israeli helicopters blasted a convoy carrying the leader of the Hezbollah political movement in Lebanon, killing him, along with two other members of his family and five bodyguards; for good measure, Israeli raiders killed eight more people in attacks on two Palestinian guerrilla bases. On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday Hezbollah militias fired rockets from Lebanon into Israel. The Israelis fired back. This is a dialogue, Mideast style.

At Egypt's initiative, Israel and the moderate Palestinian leadership agreed Thursday to join a regional summit aimed at reviving peace talks and isolating Hamas. The four-way meeting, also including Jordan, will take place Monday in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheik, officials said. It will be the first encounter between Israeli and Palestinian leaders since Hamas' violent takeover of the Gaza Strip last week left only the West Bank in the control of the more moderate Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas.

Their views come as the U.S. says that three Marines were killed in combat Thursday. An informal poll of Iraqis suggests many think President Bush holds the upper hand in the struggle with the U.S. Congress over funding the Iraq war and doubt that Democrats can force a phased withdrawal of troops as a condition of passing a spending bill. "Bush is a fox who knows how to play the game and turn it to his own advantage," said Razaq Hobi Karreem, a 40-year-old laborer in Baghdad, confident that Bush will get his way on the legislation.